Voices

A month after we moved to Cor­pus Christi, TX, hur­ri­cane Celia hit the coast like a hard swung bat. We hud­dled in the hall­way, my brother, my two sis­ters and my mom. My dad was at the hos­pi­tal hold­ing doors shut against the winds blow­ing freely through shat­tered win­dows. I have a mem­ory that he came home with cuts from fly­ing glass in his arms – not sure if that is true or if it is the mem­ory of my young self see­ing my dad as the hero he was for his patients on that day. Then the eye of the store rolled over the land. I love that image. The storm‘s eye makes for a very ten­u­ous peace, and if you are in that eye, the only promise you have is that the storm‘s back­hand is wind­ing up to hit you soon. But dur­ing that eye we had a reprieve. My dad rushed home and climbed on the roof and tried to do some­thing to repair the hole caused by a 4×4 post that flew into the liv­ing room like a lawn dart. I remem­ber all around us were men­ac­ing and roil­ing clouds but lit­tle wind. Like an ani­mal I think I could feel the plum­met­ing baro­met­ric pres­sure. Every­thing in me was say­ing run. But we didn‘t run. We stayed together, rehud­dled and weath­ered the sec­ond half of Celia. I am think­ing of the rest­less quiet in the storm today, about what the wind of voices that sur­round me are up to. I am wait­ing for the eye because I have deci­sions to make.

As I approach inevitable change in my life, voices start want­ing to be heard. Like the dog lis­ten­ing to the speaker horn on the old record label for “His Master‘s Voice”, I incline my ear. Where will I place my atten­tion in this moment of change? All of the voices…“do this” “stop, wait” “go”, all these sounds com­ing at me with good inten­tion, all of them sum­moned by me in some way – it is impor­tant to remem­ber that I do invite the din. I feel like the mother bird with the worm and the lit­tle birds are chirp­ing away. It is easy to for­get that I hold the worm, and in this case, as with every case, the worm is choice.

My friend/mentor Don, asked me a sim­ple ques­tion and then shut up and said noth­ing else: What do you want your life to look like, because you have the chance to make it look dif­fer­ent. This is, of course, prob­a­bly true every day, but when so many things are in flux (love that word), it feels more true now. What I am feel­ing in me is that it is time to look for the quiet. Now is not the time for a mil­lion ideas from a mil­lion well (or not) wish­ers. I want to know me, and I do know me (!). In the midst of the change, the fear, the chaos, is oppor­tu­nity. While I know I won‘t run off and join the cir­cus or aban­don com­mit­ments and respon­si­bil­i­ties, I have lots of room to move within those respon­si­bil­i­ties. Some­times it is easy to think I am trapped because I made deci­sions pre­vi­ously that didn‘t pan out and that I am respon­si­ble for, or to think I am trapped because the sec­ond storm is com­ing. Here is the truth. I am not trapped. I am free. I am not alone. I am con­nected, loved. I have worlds of choices, even within sit­u­a­tions that feel con­stricted, for­eign, and soul-less. I am not pow­er­less in this storm, and this is not my first or last storm.